Posted
by
msmash
on Friday March 25, 2016 @09:20AM
from the snowden-camp dept.

An anonymous reader cites an article on Salon: Lawrence "Larry" Wilkerson, former Bush official finds the revelations made by Edward Snowden a service. In 2013, Edward Snowden, a former contractor with NSA, worked with journalists to reveal a number of mass surveillance programs. In a recent interview, Wilkerson said, "I think Snowden has done a service. I wouldn't have had the courage, and maybe not even the intellectual capacity, to do it the way he did it. There's a logic to what he has done that is impressive. He really has refrained from anything that was truly dangerous, with regard to our security -- regardless of what people say. He has been circumspect about what he's released, how he's released it, who he's released it to."

“Don’t ever count us out, because we are the Greeks on Milos. We have the power, and we will do it.”

He added, “To hell with international law, to hell with human rights, to hell with human dignity.”

We live in a World that's falling apart now - some of it is even our fault (all those decades meddling in the Middle East over oil). China is now the largest economy in the World and with economic power, military power follows.

We have a very crowded World now and things are going to get worse as global warming takes its toll.

I'm afraid the human race will be going backwards in the sense that we'll be having more territorial and resource (fresh water, fishing rights, even arable land) wars. And we'll be dealing with more immigration from the poor countries who want a piece of our pie; which isn't growing fast enough to accommodate the great masses.

We're not headed for Star Trek type of future but a Mad Max one. And he who has the guns is going fare better.

Snowden leaks are HUGE steps to allow places like China and Russia to kill the light of freedom that is America

That "Shining City on the Hill" exists because we have always taken steps to protect our freedoms from countries that do not respect individual rights

The instant that they were given access to our methods, we all became less safe

It is time to stop acting like offended children and take responsibility for our safety, bending over and letting putin put-it-in (like Snowden has) is not the path to more freedom or security (they go hand in hand)

What freedoms do you have when the superpacs buy the congressmen and senators? The energy sector put aside over 860million dollars to help their congress wimp and senator wimp to win. Favourable laws for the super rich mean that you are no better off then the Chinese with their restrictions on freedoms.

Bad for the world? Where do you get off saying that? Bad for Europe, protecting their free trade and energy sources while simultaneously providing their defense during the cold war? Bad for Japan? Bad for Korea?

Get an education on geopolitics. If you live in the Western world, you yourself have benefited directly from that military power, and that stability, whether you want to believe it or not. You haven't been paying attention, or else you are willfully ignoring the truth.

In times of total war, like the countries where fighting were taking place in Europe and Asia, or the economic power houses of Canada and the US, there are no civilian populations.
A skilled craftsman, making airplanes, rifles, etc. is as much a fighting man as a soldier - he just gets less dirty.

Right you are. I think we should put all the undesirables in a camp where we can keep tabs on them. Then build some shower areas where the dirty miscreants can get clean - only instead of water, gas comes out and then kills them all. Then we can build some big ovens to bake 'em in since they are taking up so much space with their dead corpses.

Bullocks. Indiscriminate slaughter of civilians is unacceptable; and everyone involved in it, axis and allied alike, should have been tossed away into a hole as a war criminal. I do say indiscriminate for a reason though. If you take a job producing arms to ammunition you do become part of the war machine... you know there's a risk and you take your chances when you sign on the dotted line. But if you're flipping hamburgers, fixing people's plumbing, or making sure they can get their Netflix, you should

Well, in the Star Trek chronology, that society shattering disaster was World War 3... that was over 600 million killed via a combination of nuclear exchanges between most major powers, biological warfare, multiple conventional conflicts, mass genocide of survivors thought to be irradiated or infected, the dissolution of the United Nations, collapse of social order in the United States, and ecological collapse and famine on multiple continents. And all of that was a few decades the Eugenics Wars (In the 19

It ways he's a "former Bush official", but doesn't say in what capacity. For reference, wikipedia says he is the former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Powell:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Pity it's only people who are part of administrations long out of power say things like this.

XXongo, you're right, but its good some of these folks, even if from past administrations, are speaking out..especially well spoken ones like Wilkerson.

Hats off to Snowden, otherwise we'd still be thinking most of this stuff our government wouldn't even consider doing to its citizenry (just from a moral standpoint of honoring and protecting the constitution and those people that are the citizens) with only the tinfoils thinking it was possible.

Hats off to Snowden, otherwise we'd still be thinking most of this stuff our government wouldn't even consider doing to its citizenry (just from a moral standpoint of honoring and protecting the constitution and those people that are the citizens) with only the tinfoils thinking it was possible.

It's sad that even the most tinfoil hat wearing faraday caged individual can't be considered paranoid anymore, although quite a few of us have said what was possible long ago without resorting to tinfoil hatness.

Snowden revealing what any person paying attention already knew doesn't mean that conspiracy theorists are right, it just means that most of the population isn't paying attention to what is in front of their nose and are surprised when someone points it out to them.

Not just nothing to lose, when they were in power, they were on the top. No president or chief of staff is ever going to prison. They will never be held accountable in ANY circumstance.

Former ones however.... they are UNDER the law.

You see the same in intelligence communities. While they are in the circles, mass surveillance and warrantless taps are A-OK. Once they become civilians who are subject to laws....suddenly its all overreach.

I think that is why, of all the spying revelations, the one that seemed t

I still think that was overwrought. The Chancellor of fucking Germany is surprised that people are trying to spy on her? Bitch, please.

She might be pissed that her security team couldn't stop it, but she knows full well that everyone and their grandmother is trying to spy on her, including but not limited to her enemies, her allies, and people who just want to know what is going on. And if you think Germany isn't trying to get detailed information on what Obama is doing, you're deluded.

Edward Snowden blew the whistle on a serious abuse by government. I believe Edward Snowden is a hero for it. Government should not be spying on people. People should not fear their government, their government should fear them.

Snowden is the best whistleblower one could hope for. He's bloody brilliant. On the other hand we shouldn't even care about the character of the whistleblower, it just deflects attention from the issue they're reporting about.

If he was brilliant he would have made sure that the encrypted stuff he did provide keys for was so wide-spread that it couldn't have been intercepted. Now a few journalists did get it and they were raided, which did provide proof that what he had was the real deal and not fake.

Our government should be subject to both the rule of law and the will of the people, which should be either be the same or consistent.

Snowden exposed significant excursions of illegality, and did so in a less than most harmful manner. If by 'harmful' you would mean 'to have exposed what they are doing in secret', then yes, this is correct.

He didn't use insecure means, known to be subject to compromise, to disclose matters specific enough to risk the lives of intelligence operatives worldwide, nor to disclose precise methods. That was done by another government official, and so far they haven't been held to account. Mr. Snowden is not a criminal except in the strictest sense of having not been caught before he disclosed what he did. He is a whistleblower, and a genuine patriot. He is part of the process of restoring our government to a position of guarded trust it should occupy.

I don't think politicians really care too much about the criminal justice system.

You are correct, generally, but they tend to care a little more when they're in the process of running for office.

Though really, in this year's GOP political climate, getting thrown in jail might actually make them more popular. It did wonders for 50-Cent and Adolph Hitler, after all. Maybe Ted Cruz is looking for a little street cred.

I'm sure it is. Historical evidence would tend to agree: http://www.conservativeoutfitt... [conservati...itters.com] See item 7. Not my issue but to pray God's mercies for their dilemma.

However, it's also a problem between Ted and I. It's about credibility.I pray. I believe the Scriptures. For me to pursue public office, while leaning heavily on the appeal of my faith, while having skeletons such as this is just too much. I'm far from a perfect man, I battle with my sinful nature, but there are things that even I just won't abide

I pray. I believe the Scriptures. For me to pursue public office, while leaning heavily on the appeal of my faith, while having skeletons such as this is just too much. I'm far from a perfect man, I battle with my sinful nature, but there are things that even I just won't abide. Either a man's faith determines his walk in this world or he is a fraud.

I'm curious, does this mean you wouldn't vote for Ted Cruz if the allegations prove true?

And would you even considering voting for a man of even lower character

Do you believe he could have prevented the U.S. government from knowing his name? Because if they knew who did it, and we the people didn't, Snowden's fate would be much, much worse than his current predicament.

Snowden wasn't at all circumspect. He took a huge data dump containing data dangerous to US national security

This is the quickest way to get everything. He didn't have the time to decide which pieces he needed. Moreover, the vastness is one of the things he was whistleblowing about. Without a ton of data it would have been hard to prove.

and handed it off to a foreign national.

Do you have proof of this? My understanding is it has mostly been very select reporters who have had access and the stuff that has been release has been screened prior to release.

And he did it all because he's an attention whore. If he had done it the right way, we wouldn't even know his name.

No, he did it because he was paranoid. He was scared that if noone knew his name then it would be easy for him to just disappear. It's not like the government wasn't going to figure out who the mole was. This way, everyone else knows who the mole is too so it's much harder for him to be eliminated. Also, having a name to face makes it more believable versus the standard tin-foil hat crowd that says "our sources" and rightfully noone believes them.

He did give the data to a foreign national, largely because he knew that if he only gave it to US reporters it could be too easily hushed.

He gave it to foreign reporters of one of our closest allies. Using "foreign national" although technically true is propaganda that makes it sound like he gave it to the military commander of one of our enemies as many people don't even know what "foreign national" even means. Why not use the truth and say that he gave "limited access to British Reporters"? Because that doesn't sound near as scary as "he gave top secret documents to foreign nationals" does.

Damage control for the damage control.A feeble attempt to placate a few people who are catching on to propaganda tactics.What are we supposed to think? "Some people in the federal government think that mass surveillance is bad so there isn't really much cause for concern or action"?